1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a maintenance apparatus used with an inkjet printer to maintain nozzles of a print head in good condition through a vertical motion, and more particularly to a maintenance apparatus used with an inkjet printer in which a maintenance operation is started by a carriage and powered from a feed roller shaft.
2. Description of the Related Art
A general inkjet printer is a printing apparatus printing an image by spraying ink stored in a print head through nozzles. Because the nozzle surface of the print head is often contaminated by sprayed ink during a printing process, it is necessary to regularly clean ink off the nozzle surface in order to obtain high quality printing. In addition, the nozzle may get blocked by dried ink when the nozzle is open to air without printing for a long period of time. Therefore, there have been various maintenance apparatuses developed to cover the nozzle to prevent such problems.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional maintenance apparatus for an inkjet printer.
Referring to FIG. 1, the maintenance apparatus for an inkjet printer comprises a wiper unit 10, a capping unit 20, a maintenance cam 30, and a motor 40.
The wiper unit 10 comprises a wiper 11 to clean nozzles, and a wiper elevation portion 13 to support an elevating movement of the wiper 11. The capping unit 20 comprises a cap 21 to cover the nozzles of a printer head, a resilient member 22 to resiliently support the cap 21, and a cap elevation portion 23 to guide an elevating movement of the resilient member 22. The maintenance cam 30 has a wiper cam 31 to lift the wiper elevation portion 13 and a capping cam 32 coaxially formed with the wiper cam 31 to lift the cam elevation portion 23, and a worm wheel 33 assembled at one side thereof. The motor 40 supplies power to elevate the wiper 11 and the cap 21, and press-fitted to a shaft of the motor 40 is a worm 41 which is engaged with the worm wheel 33.
Hereinafter, the operation of the conventional maintenance apparatus used with the inkjet printer structure as above is described.
When the motor 40 is rotated, the worm 41 assembled on the shaft of the motor 40 rotates, thereby rotating the worm wheel 33. When the worm wheel 33 rotates, the maintenance cam 30 rotates together with the wiper cam 31 and the capping cam 32. Accordingly, when cleaning the nozzles of the print head, the motor 40 is rotated a predetermined number of times to allow the wiper cam 31 to elevate the elevation portion 13. When the wiper 11 ascends, a carrier (not shown) moves the nozzles (not shown) of the print head left and right with respect to the wiper 11, thereby cleaning a nozzle surface of the nozzles. When printing is completed and the nozzles are covered, the print head is placed above the capping unit 20 and then the motor 40 is rotated a predetermined number of times to allow the capping cam 32 to lift the cap elevation portion 23. As the cap elevation portion 23 ascends, the cap 21 covers the print head, thereby preventing the nozzle from being exposed to air.
However, such a conventional maintenance apparatus used with an inkjet printer requires a separate motor to drive the maintenance apparatus, thereby increasing manufacturing costs. In addition, because more space is required for the separate motor, the size of the inkjet printer increases or the interior becomes less spacious. Furthermore, the use of the separate motor increases the weight of the inkjet printer, and since the cap is not fastened to the carriage, the cap and the nozzle may be dislocated when the printer receives a shock.
Therefore, there is a need for a maintenance apparatus used with an inkjet printer which can clean and cover the nozzles without a need for a separate motor and has the carriage and cap integrally fastened when the nozzles are capped.